Annual Monitoring Report RP3 - Austria
Contextual information
National performance plan adopted following Commission Decision (EU) 2022/774 of 13 April 2022
List of ACCs 1
Vienna ACC
No of airports in the scope of the performance plan
≥80’K 1
<80’K 5
Share of Union-wide traffic (TSUs) RP3 3.0%
Share of Union-wide en route costs RP3 3.0%
Share en route / terminal costs RP3 82% / 18%
En route charging zone(s)
Austria
Terminal charging zone(s)
Austria
Main ANSP
• Austro Control
Other ANSPs
–
MET Providers
–
Traffic (En route traffic zone)
▪ Actual IFR movements for Austria grew on average by +2.0% per year between 2019 and 2024.
▪ In the RP3 revised performance plan IFR movements were forecasted to remain stable (+0.2% per year). Planned traffic was in line with the STATFOR October 2021 base forecast.
▪ Austria reached the 2019 pre-pandemic traffic level in 2023.
▪ Actual en route service units for Austria grew on average by +3.7% per year between 2019 and 2024.
▪ Actual service units grew faster than planned in the RP3 revised performance plan (+1.0% per year). Planned traffic was in line with the STATFOR October 2021 base forecast.
▪ A total of 14,413k actual service units were recorded over RP3, +10.1% above the aggregated planned value (13,094K).
Safety (Main ANSP)
▪ Austro Control achieved the RP3 target maturity for all Management Objectives in 2024.
▪ The overall safety performance of the organisation was stable, with a single occurrence of runway incursion (RIs) and a marginally lower rate of separation minima infringements (SMIs) compared with 2023 at the Member State level.
Environment (Member State)
▪ Environmental performance in Austria deteriorated during RP3. KEA increased from 1.92% in 2020 to 2.11% in 2024.
▪ Austria achieved the KEA target in one year of RP3, in 2021, during the low-traffic Covid-19 period.
▪ The NSA noted that the main factors contributed to KEA deteriorating during the period were increased traffic demand that exceeded forecasts, shifted traffic flows caused by Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine and adverse weather during the summer despite implementing full and cross border FRAs (FRAIT and SECSIFRA).
▪ KEP remained stable, while SCR deteriorated from 2.57% to 2.70% during RP3.
▪ The share of CDO flights deteriorated from 31.13% to 27.75% during RP3.
▪ Additional taxi out time deteriorated from 2.07 to 2.70 min/flight, while additional time in terminal airspace improved from 1.28 to 1.17 min/flight during RP3.
Capacity (Member State)
▪ Austria accumulated a total of 821,242 en-route ATFM delay minutes within the RP3 timeframe, reaching the highest level of total delay minutes generated in 2024. During RP3, Austria accounted for 1.49% of the total delays at Union level. Compared to RP2, total delay minutes decreased by 68%.
▪ Austria met its en-route ATFM delay targets in 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023, and failed to meet them in 2024.
▪ In RP3, the main drivers of en-route ATFM delays in Austria were Weather (63%) and ATC staffing (19%).
▪ Over RP3, 50% of delayed flights in Austria experienced delays longer than 15 minutes, representing an increase of 1 percentage point compared to RP2.
▪ In Austria, the total number of ATCOs in OPS over the RP3 period increased by 8 FTEs, representing a 6% increase compared to 2019. Austria fell short of the planned ATCO numbers by 1 FTE by the end of RP3.
▪ Austria accumulated a total of 220,573 arrival ATFM delay minutes within the RP3 timeframe, reaching the highest level of total delay minutes generated in 2024. Compared to RP2, total terminal delay minutes decreased by 53%.
▪ In RP3, the leading drivers of arrival ATFM delays in Austria were Weather and ATC Staffing, representing 75% and 17% of total delay minutes.
Cost-efficiency (En route/Terminal charging zone(s))
▪ Over RP3, the en route actual unit cost of Austria was lower than the determined unit cost for each year of the reference period. The second half of the reference period has been marked by increased traffic caused by Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, resulting in lower actual unit costs.
▪ En route actual total cost for RP3 (895M€2017) were lower than determined (by -7.7M€2017, or -0.9%). Over RP3, staff costs for Austro Control have been higher than determined (+17M€2017, or +3.1%), mainly driver by higher traffic leading to increased overtime and higher than planned pension costs compensated by lower depreciation costs (-10.5M€2017, or -10%) and lower cost of capital (-5.2M€2017, or -22%), due to delayed investments as a result of the prolonged impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
▪ The total RP3 en route regulatory result for Austro Control amounted to 29.3M€. This is +22.6M€ higher than the ex-ante regulatory result. The difference is mainly attributable to the application of the traffic risk sharing mechanism. The regulatory result amounted to +3.2% of the total en route revenues, while the ex-ante regulatory result amounted to 0.8% of the total planned en route revenues.
▪ Over RP3, the terminal actual unit cost of Austria was higher than determined in three out of four years (2022, 2023 and 2024), mainly resulting from lower terminal service units than planned.
▪ Terminal actual total costs for RP3 (201M€2017) were higher than determined (by +7.8M€2017, or +4.0%). This is mainly driven by higher staff costs (+12.9M€2017, or +11%) than planned recorded by Austro Control, resulting from higher-than-expected pension costs.
▪ The total RP3 terminal regulatory result for Austro Control amounted to -6.8M€. The loss is mainly attributable to the application of the traffic risk sharing mechanism.